SAP ES Explorer vs. SAP Connector for Microsoft .NET

In the end of 2008, SAP has released ES Explorer for .NET tool. This tool is a successor of SAP connector for Microsoft .NET (NCo) as the connectivity tool between SAP back-end systems and the Microsoft. NET platform.

What does ES Explorer for .NET do ?1. It succeeds SAP Connector 2.0 for .NET 2. It enables connectivity between the Microsoft .NET platform and SAP back-end systems based on SOA architecture3. It is a development tool for Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

What doesn’t ES Explorer for .NET do ?1. It doesn’t replace SAP Connector 2.0 for .NET 2. It doesn’t enable connectivity between the Microsoft .NET platform and SAP back-end systems based on SAP Remote Function Calls (RFC)3. It is not a migration tool from Microsoft Visual Studio 2003 to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008

Which design time connectivity solutions do the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 developers have ?1. Developers that are interested to continue to work with SAP back-end systems based on RFC can use a solution based on backward compatability and described in the following paper2. Developers that are ready to migrate their SAP back-end to SOA architecture can take advantage of ES Explorer for .NET

7 Comments

Rima,1. Can we publish WCF service with ES Explorer 1.1?2. Does SAP connector for Microsoft .NET (NCo) now support VS 2005 and VS 2008, or we are still stuck with first designing in VS2003, and then doing the work around, as cited in the paper you referred?

1. Unfortunately, ES Explorer for .NET doesn’t support publishing WCF service.2. SAP Connector for .NET doesn’t support Visual Studio 2005 and 2008. The way to use it in Visual Studio 2005 and 2008 is to do a workaround desribed in the referred paper.

In order to work with ES Explorer for .NET you need: 1. a Services Registry shipped with SAP Netweaver CE 7.1 or SAP Netweaver PI 7.1 2. expose BAPIs as Webservices and publish them to Services Registry

Does the SAP ES perform any additional functions than if we use the Visual Studio (VS) Web Services feature directed at a specific WS on an SAP box? I realize ES handles the UDDI-level identification of a WS, but if we aren’t using UDDI and are just targeting the consumption of a WAS-hosted WS, does ES provide anything else functionally in VS than just using the VS provided ‘Add Web Reference…’? For example, are the proxies generated the same? Is the VS VB coding done any differently in terms of interacting w/the proxies and/or data structures? I’m just trying to understand what the value-add is of the SAP ES vs. what VS already provides.

ES Explorer for .NET implementation of “Add SAP Enterprise Service” is based on Visual Studio “Add Web Service” feature. However, if you would try to use “Add Web Service” feature directly it would not work. ES Explorer for .NET performs an automatic conversion of WSDL from SAP (Document style) to Microsoft (RPC style) standard.